American Short Fiction

Hot Mr. Scrooge is my neighbor. Hope The man loathes Christmas. What person doesn’t warm up to the best holiday of the year? The cabin I purchased mentioned it needed light work, not a gut renovation. Looks nothing like the picture. The brooding beast next door said he’d help spruce up the place if it will get me to leave him alone. Deal. Because who wants to be around the Grinch longer than they have to? Even if he’s tall. Has a gorgeous face you can stare at all day. And a body you’d love to mount on your sleigh repeatedly. Then I wondered could I help Mr. Non-Christmas ...

“Short stories have to accomplish a nearly impossible magic trick: to introduce a world often much stranger than our own and make you care about it in a matter of pages,” writes R. F. Kuang in her introduction. “The most important part of this magic trick is just a willingness to get weird.” The stories in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 are brimming with bizarre and otherworldly premises.

From the royal wedding to boring airplane companions, Samuel Beckett to Margaret Thatcher, "senior moments" to life as a waitress, Maeve's Times gives us wonderful insight into a changing Ireland as it celebrates the work of one of our best-loved writers in all its diversity - revealing her characteristic directness, laugh-out-loud humor, and unswerving gaze into the true heart of a matter.

As a 41-year-old man confronts his own mortality in this collection's title story, he recalls his Spokane Indian father's chilling death from alcoholism and diabetes. Another tale features an eccentric salesman pursuing a married woman from airport to airport. And then there's the film editor who sees nothing wrong with altering footage to fit preconceived views - until he becomes the target of media distortion.

In Temple Folk, Black Muslims contemplate the convictions of their race, religion, economics, politics, and sexuality in America. The ten “beautiful and vivid” (Jacqueline Woodson, National Book Award­–winning and New York Times bestselling author) stories in this collection contribute to the bounty of diverse narratives about Black life by intimately portraying the experiences of a community that resists the mainstream culture to which they are expected to accept and aspire to while functioning within the country in which they are born.

Minister Terrell Crutchfield of Tabernacle Baptist Church deals with life consequences when his past and present romances collide. In this African American / Black contemporary church suspense romance story, Megan Hightower, and Madeline Webster, two brazen church harlots will bring on the drama. Marital infidelity and adultery take center stage in this delightfully entertaining church tale. Sometimes in life when it rains unfortunately it pours out deceit and deception. Mixing Madeline Webster into the equation literally adds fuel to the fire. Megan Hightower and Minister's Crutchfield's ...

Autumn, a young woman trapped in a world of the unknown, has the bright idea to move to Paris, the City of Love. " ...there I was, sobbing in-between hugs, farewells and well-wishes. It was almost too much all at once…” Autumn lost her dream job after the business cut off many staff members, and she became lost in her mind with no-one but herself; and a piece of paper. Although Losing her job is what drove Autumn to the city of Paris, love is what made her stay. Have you ever seen a man, and instantly your heart raced? Olivier is a handsome Frenchman; tall, toned body, has an ...

En Barcelona, una prostituta que va entrando en la vejez entrena a su perro para llorar ante la tumba que ha escogido para sí misma. En Viena, una mujer se vale de su don de ver el futuro para convertirse en la adivina de una familia rica. En Ginebra, el conductor de una ambulancia y su esposa acogen al abandonado y aparentemente moribundo ex presidente de un país caribeño, solo para descubrir que sus ambiciones políticas siguen intactas.

In the gritty streets of Detroit, the game has changed, but the players remain the same. "Detroit Life After 15 Years: Volume 3" plunges you back into the heart of the city where loyalty, betrayal, and survival are the only currencies that matter. As old rivals resurface and new alliances are forged, the stakes have never been higher. With each move, the line between friend and foe blurs, and the consequences of every decision become deadlier.This volume continues the gripping saga of those who have lived by the hustle and survived the streets, now facing the ghosts of their pasts and the ...

(en-tan-gle-ment): noun- a complicated or compromising relationship or situation  Five couples, five stories about friendships, trust issues, forgiveness, and love that resolved over time. In Dare to Love, Sapphire and Zaiden hook up one time. Three years later, when Zaiden returns to the states, he finds out that he has a three-year-old daughter. Will they find their way back to each other, or will they remain cordial because of their daughter? In Retail Love, Manny notices Sienna. Manny has FWBs (Friends with Benefits), not relationships. Sienna falls for Manny. One night and many more ...

Eight exciting classic American Tall Tales! This collection includes the famed stories of Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, Stormalong, Mike Fink, Davy Crockett, Johnny Appleseed, John Henry, and Joe Magarac.

After breaking up with his longtime girlfriend, Tyrese is heartbroken. Using the money he saved up for her engagement ring he goes to Las Vegas where he meets beautiful stripper, Aaliyah. After hitting it off in the club, the couple agrees to go on a date where a romance blossoms. Things get hot and heavy between the two and Tyrese realizes that Aaliyah is more than just a rebound. This African American erotic romance is less than 7,000 words and is for mature readers only.

Here is the preface to 12 magnificent stories, originally part of The John Cheever Audio Collection, in which John Cheever celebrates - with unequaled grace and tenderness - the deepest feelings we have.

Everlasting is the sixteenth novella in the ongoing story of the Andersen family. Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been months since her death and her children and grandchildren she leaves behind continue to grapple with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. Some look back at what else has been lost to them and struggle to make sense of it. Claire Andersen Slavik has invited Ethan Gilchrist to visit her lakeside resort so that he can research his family’s history in the area. She knows it’s important...

In the Finale, you’ll learn karma is real, and just because you share the same blood doesn’t necessarily make you family.

Rebecca- is wealthy and lives between two worlds. The one that she has been raised in and the one that draws her. Her link to that world is her best friend Lateef. She is in a relationship that has been chosen for her by her family. She wants to be the good girl and make her family proud, but will she be able to satisfy them and still be herself. Cruise- is the last hope for his family's failing business. He wants to be his own man, but he also doesn't want to see all his family worked for lost. He is torn between the woman and life he wants and the one that will save his family name. ...

When Cohn Holland sets his sights on Eliza Allen, he’s captivated and is drawn to her dark beauty. The new divorcée is hurting from her ex-husband’s betrayal and trying to build a new life of independence; finding love again is the last thing on Eliza’s mind. Sensing Eliza’s pain and mistrust, Cohn tries to prove that he can be all the man she will ever need— in and out of the boardroom, even if he is younger. Cohn doesn’t give up easily and will annihilate Eliza’s doubts and fears one by one until he makes her his for good. This is an older woman and younger man romance with...

Queen Torah- had delivered only stillborn princes to her husband. She decides that she will choose a lady for her husband to have sons with. Their children will be legitimized by the council. Only after any children she gives him. Her plan does not go as she thought it to. Leaving animosity and hostility in it’s wake. King Jerrold- wants no parts of his wife’s plan. He has never had an affair and would not start now. But, he loves his wife and seeks to make her happy. So he goes along with it. Finding that he is beginning to have a care for the lady chosen by his wife, he is left to ...

Some of the best-known and most influential pieces of crime fiction have been from African American writers. Be it Walter Mosley's great Detective Easy Rawlins, or the mean streets of Harlem at the hands of Chester Himes, the stories and characters in this anthology have shaped the mystery genre with their own unique viewpoints and styles. Contributors to the collection include Robert Greer, Chester Himes, Walter Mosley, Cary Phillips, Frankie Bailey, and Richard Wright.

The lure of the American West is in the spirit of adventure, in the majestic expanse of unconquered wilderness and in rugged individuals on a quest for identity and sometimes for survival. Owen Wister's unsmiling Virginian... Dorothy M. Johnson's, "A Man Called Horse": These are a few of the colorful, even legendary characters who populate The American West in Fiction, a collection of stories edited by Jon Tuska.